Karmic Relationships:Esoteric Studies - Volume III

Karmic Relationships, Volume III: Lecture XI: Evolution of the Michael Principle Throughout the Ages. The Split in the Cosmic Intelligence

XI

EVOLUTION OF
THE MICHAEL PRINCIPLE THROUGHOUT THE AGES

THE SPLIT IN
THE COSMIC INTELLIGENCE

For a long time
we have been speaking of the karmic facts and conditions
connected with the Anthroposophical Movement, with the
Anthroposophical Society and with the individuals who feel
impelled out of an inner sincerity, to choose their path of
life within this Movement. Much will remain to be said on
these karmic questions after my return from England, but
today, in our last lecture before my departure which will
take me away for the rest of August, today I would like to
bring to a kind of conclusion what I have said. Thus in
today's lecture we will to some extent round off the
thoughts I have been able to communicate to you in these
our studies upon karma.

You will all have
observed, my dear friends, how manifold are the forms
through which the karma of the individual anthroposophist
has passed in former lives on earth and between death and a
new birth. Especially in the last two lectures we have been
able to hint at the great significance which these things
may have for the individual anthroposophist in his karma.
We have seen how the karma of anthroposophists is connected
with the evolution of the Michael principle through long,
long epochs of time. To begin with, we saw in a more
abstract form how the rulership of the Cosmic Intelligence
— for so we called it — fell from the dominion
of Michael. For as I said, in ancient times it was so
indeed, that men could not ascribe to themselves the
essence of Intelligence. They ascribed to the inspiration
of higher Powers all that they could express in forms of
Intelligence. And those who had knowledge of these matters
knew that the higher Powers here concerned were the ones
who afterwards, in Christian terminology, were designated
as the Powers of Michael. I also spoke to you of the 8th or
9th century A.D. as the point of time in the evolution of
civilised mankind when the Cosmic Intelligence gradually
moved down to the earth, took shape as it were in many
single drops which then lived on as personal Intelligence
in single human souls. And I told you, my dear friends, how
the perception and understanding of the Cosmic Intelligence
— that is to say, of the old rulership by Michael,
— lived on traditionally, with a certain reality of
insight. We turn our gaze for instance to those, in many
respects excellent, scholars who were connected with
Arabism and with the Aristotelianism that had lived on in
Asia since the campaigns of Alexander. This Aristotelianism
had also permeated the mysticism of the East, filling it,
as it were, with Intelligence. All this was carried across
through Africa to Spain and went on working there, in the
wisdom of the Moors, in such outstanding individualities as
Averroes; and in the teachings of these Moorish, Spanish
scholars we find a very real reflection of those old
perceptions which had still looked upward to the Cosmic
Intelligence.

Let us try to
gain a vivid idea of how the Cosmic Intelligence had been
conceived. I will give you a rough sketch of what these
Moorish, Spanish scholars taught to their pupils in Spain
in the 10th, 11th and 12th centuries, in the time when in
other parts of Europe such things were prevailing as the
School of Chartres, of which I have told you so much. In
Spain it was taught by the Moorish scholars and above all
by such an individuality as Averroes, that the Intelligence
holds sway everywhere. The whole world, the whole cosmos is
filled with the all-pervading Intelligence. Human beings
down here on earth have many different properties, but they
do not possess a personal intelligence of their own. On the
contrary, every time a human being is active on the earth,
a drop of Intelligence, a ray of Intelligence proceeds from
the universal Intelligence, and descends as it were into
the head, into the body of the single human being. So that
the human being as he walks about on earth, shares in the
universal Cosmic Intelligence which is common to all. And
when he dies, when he passes through the gate of death, the
Intelligence that was his returns to the universal
Intelligence, flows back again. Thus all the thoughts,
conceptions and ideas which man possesses in the life
between birth and death flow back into the common reservoir
of the universal Intelligence. One cannot therefore say
that the thing of outstanding value in man's soul, namely
his Intelligence, is subject to personal immortality.
Indeed it was actually taught by the Spanish, Moorish
scholars that man does not possess personal immortality.
True, he lives on, but, said these scholars, the most
important thing about him during his life is the fact that
he can unfold intelligent knowledge, and this does
not remain with his own being. We cannot therefore
say that the intelligent being possesses personal
immortality. You see, this was the very point in the fury
of the battle which was waged by the Schoolmen of the
Dominican Order. It was to maintain and uphold the personal
immortality of man. And in that time, such a striving could
appear in no other way than it did when the Dominicans
declared: Man is personally immortal, and the teaching of
Averroes on this subject is heresy, absolute heresy.
Today we have to put it differently, but for that time one
can understand that a man like Averroes in Spain, who did
not assume the personal immortality of man, was declared a
heretic. Today we have to study the matter in its reality.
We have to say: In the sense in which man has become
immortal, as to his Spiritual Soul, he has indeed attained
immortality — the continued consciousness of
personality after passing through the gate of death —
but he has attained this only since the time when a
Spiritual Soul took up its abode in earthly man. If
therefore we had asked Aristotle or Alexander what were
their thoughts about immortality, what would have been
their answer? The words of course are not the point. But
if, being asked, they had answered in our Christian
terminology, they would have said: Our soul is received by
Michael and we live on in the communion of Michael. Or they
would have expressed it cosmologically. Above all in a
community such as that of Alexander or Aristotle, they
would have spoken thus in cosmic terms, and indeed they did
speak thus: The soul of man is intelligent on earth, but
this Intelligence is a drop out of the fulness of what
Michael pours forth like a rain of Intelligence, flowing
out over mankind. This rain proceeds from the Sun, and the
Sun receives the human soul back again into its own being.
The human soul as it exists between birth and death is
rayed down to Earth from the Sun. Thus on the Sun they
would have looked for the dominion of Michael, and such
would have been their answer, cosmologically speaking.

These conceptions
found their way into Asia, returned from Asia and
flourished among the Moors in Spain at the very time when
the Scholastic Philosophy rose up in defence of personal
immortality. We must not say with the Schoolmen that this
conception was an error, but we must say: The evolution of
mankind brought with it the individual and personal
immortality of man. And it was by the Dominican Schoolmen
that this personal immortality was first emphasised, while
on the other hand an ancient truth — one that was no
longer true for that age in the evolution of the human race
— was put forward in the Academies conducted by the
Moors in Spain. For we today must not only be tolerant of
our contemporaries. We must be tolerant of those who went
on propagating ancient teachings. Such tolerance was not
possible in that time. Hence it is important for us to
repeat this to ourselves again and again: The personal
immortality maintained by Dominican Schoolmen has only been
true since the time when the Spiritual Soul slowly and
gradually entered into mankind.

We can also
describe these things in a fully Imaginative form. When a
man dies in our time — a man who was really able,
during his earthly life, to permeate his soul with true
Intelligence — having gone through the gate of death,
he looks back upon his past earthly life and sees it as an
independent life on earth. In former centuries, man having
passed through the gate of death, and looking back upon his
earthly life, saw how the etheric body became dissolved in
the cosmos. Then he passed through the realm of souls,
living through the events again in backward order. Then he
could say to himself: ‘Thus Michael, through the Sun,
administers what was mine before.’ This is the great
difference. But we can only understand such developments in
evolution when we look behind the scenes of existence,
perceiving the Spiritual behind the Material. We must see
the outer events in mankind even as they are shaped and
formed out of the spiritual world.

At this point, my
dear friends, you must enter once more into all that I have
now told you. Remember that with the 9th century A.D. the
great crisis was accomplished: the Cosmic Intelligence came
down among earthly men. This was the objective fact, this
was actually taking place. And now transplant yourselves
into the Sun-sphere, where Michael and his hosts were
holding sway as I have described. For they had perceived
the departure of Christ from the Sun and His passage to the
earth in the Mystery of Golgotha, and after that, they had
experienced how the Cosmic Intelligence descended more and
more, to become individual human knowledge. Now there was
one important event which made a deep impression, above
all, on those who belong to Michael — whom in our
last lecture I called the ‘Michaelites.’ It was
an altogether outstanding event, which I have often
described in other connections, showing the part it played
in the unfolding of civilisation on the earth. Now,
however, we must describe it as it appeared from the aspect
of the Michaelites themselves, namely from the Sun. We must
describe it as it is seen from that perspective —
when one looks down from the realm of Michael on to the
earth. This most significant event took place in the year
869 A.D. At the 8th Ecumenical Council held in that year at
Constantinople, it was declared dogmatically that the old
conception of Trichotomy, saying that man consists of body,
soul and Spirit, is heretical. It was declared: Man has
only body and soul, save that his soul possesses certain
spiritual qualities. While in the sphere of objective
realities the passage of the Intelligence into the single
human beings was being accomplished, it was decreed on
earth: Trichotomy is a false heresy. It was decreed in such
a final and decisive form that no one within European
civilisation could venture henceforth to contradict it.
Henceforth one was forbidden to say that man has body, soul
and Spirit. One might only speak of body and soul,
ascribing spiritual qualities and forces to the soul.
Something had thus taken place on earth, of which in the
realms of Michael they could only say: Now there will enter
into the souls of men the conviction that the Spiritual is
but a quality of the soul, and not the Divine which holds
sway in the great process of mankind's evolution.
‘Look down upon the earth’ — such was the
language of Michael — ‘Look down upon the
earth, behold the consciousness of the Spirit vanishing
away.’ But you must see, my dear friends, this
vanishing of the consciousness of the Spirit was bound up
with the main subject of which we wish to speak today.

As I said just
now, hitherto I have only described in abstract terms how
the evolution of the Michael realm has taken place behind
the scenes of earth-existence. I have said: the Cosmic
Intelligence came down to the single men. But this, my dear
friends, is only an abstraction. For what is
Intelligence? Needless to say we must not conceive that
when we ascend into the higher regions we shall be able to
take hold of the Intelligence there as we take hold of
trees and shrubs here in the physical world. What is
Intelligence? These abstract generalisations do not of
course exist in reality. ‘Intelligence’ means
the mutual relationships of conduct among the higher
Hierarchies. What they do, how they relate
themselves to one another, what they are to one another,
— this is the Cosmic Intelligence. And since as human
beings we must first consider the kingdom that is nearest
to us, concretely speaking the Cosmic Intelligence will be
for us the sum-total of the Beings of the Hierarchy of
Angeloi. If we are speaking concretely we cannot say
‘so much Intelligence,’ but rather ‘so
many Angeloi.’ This is the reality.

When the Church
Fathers were discussing in the year 869 A.D. whether man
should speak henceforth of the Spirit, it was a consequence
of the fact that a number of Angel Beings were separating
from the realm of Michael where they had been before, and
were assuming that they would henceforth have to do with
earthly Powers only; — that the guidance of human
beings would be achieved henceforth through earthly powers
alone. You must see clearly what kind of an event this was.
Angels are the Beings who guide men from earthly life to
earthly life. They are the Beings next above us in the
spiritual world, who lead us along our path in the life
between death and a new birth and show us the way to our
returning earthly life. They make of our several earthly
lives a connected chain, a totality of human life. Now a
number of Angel Beings — Beings who have this task
and who had been united formerly with the Michael kingdom
— went out and left the kingdom of Michael. Such
being the conduct of these Angel Beings, the destiny of
human beings could not possibly remain untouched. Who is it
partakes in the very first place in the unfolding of human
karma — in the way the earthly thoughts, the earthly
deeds and earthly feelings are transformed and elaborated
between death and a new birth? It is the Beings of the
Angeloi. If now these Angel Beings come to an entirely
different position in the cosmos — if, so to speak,
they leave the kingdom of the Sun and become no longer
celestial Angels but terrestrial — what then must
happen? Here we come upon a secret, permeating the whole
evolution and history of Europe, hidden behind the external
facts. Certain Angeloi remained in the kingdom of Michael.
In that great School in the beginning of the 15th century
we find also the Angel Beings belonging to the human beings
who were then in the kingdom of Michael. To all the souls
of human beings who lived in the kingdom of Michael and of
whom I have spoken to you, belong Angel Beings who have
remained in Michael's kingdom. But there were others who
left it and identified themselves with that which was in
essence earthly.

Now you will say:
How is it possible that it suddenly occurs to a number of
Michael Angels to leave the kingdom of Michael? It does not
occur to the others to leave. — This, my dear
friends, I must admit, is one of the most difficult
questions that can possibly be raised in connection with
the modern evolution of mankind. It is a question such that
as we enter into it all the inner forces of the human being
are called into play. It is a question deeply and
intimately connected with the whole life of man. For you
see, at the foundation of it there lies a cosmic fact. You
know, from lectures I have given here, that what is
commonly referred to as a mere physical planet is in
reality a gathering of Spiritual Beings. When we look up to
a star, that which appears to us physically is but the
external aspect. In reality we have to do with a gathering
of Spiritual Beings. Now there is a certain contrast. Since
the very beginning of earthly evolution, this contrast has
existed. It is the contrast between the Intelligences of
all the planets and the Intelligence of the Sun. There is
indeed on the one hand the Sun Intelligence, while on the
other there are the Intelligences of the several planets.
And it was always so, that the Sun Intelligence stood
paramountly under the dominion of Michael, while the other
Planetary Intelligences were subject to the other
Archangels. Thus we may say:

SUN INTELLIGENCE.
PLANETARY INTELLIGENCES.

Sun
... ... MICHAEL

Mercury
... ... RAPHAEL

Venus ... ...
ANAEL

Mars ... ...
SAMAEL

Jupiter ...
... ZACHARIEL

Moon ... ...
GABRIEL

Saturn ...
... ORIPHIEL

On the other hand
it was always so that one might not say, Michael
administers the Sun Intelligence alone, but rather, Michael
administers the whole Cosmic Intelligence, differentiated
as it is into the Sun Intelligence and the Planetary
Intelligences, Mercury, Venus, Mars, etc. The several
Beings of the Hierarchy of Archangeloi partake in its
administration. But over all of them together Michael holds
sway ever and again. Thus the whole Cosmic Intelligence is
administered by Michael. Now of course, every human being
was a human being even before, when Michael administered
the Cosmic Intelligence from which only a ray descended
into the human individual. And it was due to the Sun that
man on earth could yet feel himself as man; could feel
himself as single man and not as a mere vehicle for the
common Cosmic Intelligence. All human Intelligence comes
from Michael in the Sun.

But when these
centuries approached — the 8th, the 9th, the 10th
century A.D. — it happened that the Planetary
Intelligences began to reckon with the fact that the earth
had changed, and that the Sun too had changed.

My dear friends,
that which goes on externally, which the astronomers
describe, is after all only the outer side. You know that
approximately every 11 years we have a period of Sun-spots,
when in the shining of the Sun upon the earth certain
places are darkened, covered with spots or blotches. This
was not always so. In very ancient times the Sun shone down
as a uniform disc of light. There were no Sun-spots.
Moreover, after some thousands of years the Sun will have
very many more spots than it has today. The Sun is growing
ever more spotted. This again is the outer manifestation of
the fact that the Michael Power, the Cosmic Power of
Intelligence is still decreasing. In the increase of the
Sun-spots in the course of Cosmic Evolution is revealed the
Sun's decay; the Sun within the cosmos grows increasingly
dim and old. And at the appearance of a sufficiently large
number of Sun-spots, the other Planetary Intelligences
recognised that they would now no longer be ruled by the
Sun. They resolved no longer to allow the earth to be
dependent on the Sun, but to make it dependent henceforth
on the entire cosmos directly. This took place through the
planetary Counsels of the Archangels. Notably under the
leadership of Oriphiel, this emancipation of the Planetary
Intelligences from the Sun-Intelligence took place. It was
a complete separation of Cosmic Powers that had hitherto
belonged together. The Sun-Intelligence of Michael and the
Planetary Intelligences gradually came into cosmic
opposition one with another.

Yes, my dear
friends, though we do ascribe an entirely different kind of
inner nature — of soul-faculty and soul-condition
— to the Beings of the Hierarchy of the Angeloi,
nevertheless we must ascribe decisions, weighty
reflections on that which is taking place, even to
them. For we human beings also make our decisions in no
other way. We observe the things that are taking place
externally before us, we let the facts speak for themselves
and then, under the influence of the facts, we act
accordingly. Only the determining factors for us between
birth and death are earthly facts, whereas for the Beings
of the Hierarchy of Angeloi they are cosmic facts, as when
a split takes place in the planetary life.

Thus the one host
of Beings turned to the Earth-Intelligence and therewith at
the same time to the Planetary Intelligence. The other host
remained true to the sphere of Michael in order to carry
into all the future what Michael administers as the
Eternal. And this is the decisive question today. Now that
all the power is among men, will Michael be able to carry
into all the future that which is Eternal in his working,
— now that that which appears in the physical Sun
grows darker and vanishes slowly away?

Thus we see, as
an outcome of cosmic events, a split among the Angeloi who
were formerly united with Michael. But these Beings
themselves partake in the karmic evolution. Consider the
whole of this as it takes place in the life between death
and a new birth. Here it is not so that every human soul
can run his course alone, nor can every Angel who guides
the human being run his course alone, but the Hierarchy of
Angeloi work together; and in their working together karma
lives and is worked out. If in an earthly life I become
connected with another human being and we work this out
karmically in our next life, then, needless to say, the
Angel of the one human being must come together with the
Angel of the other. A co-operation must take place. But in
many cases this was what happened (and this is the
overwhelming, shattering experience). In the Ecumenical
Council that took place on earth in 869 A.D. the signal was
given for an overwhelming event in the spiritual world
above. It would almost shatter one to pieces, when one
holds oneself entirely upright with the true use of the
Cosmic Intelligence, face to face with such overpowering
relationships. It is a thing of untold significance that
has already happened and is happening more and more: the
Angel of the one human being, of the one human soul who was
karmically connected with another human soul, did not go on
with the Angel of that other soul. Of two human souls
karmically united with one another, the one Angel remained
with Michael while the other went down to earth. What was
bound to happen as a result? In the time between the
founding of Christianity and the age of the Spiritual Soul,
which is signalised above all by the 9th century and the
year 869 A.D., the karma of human beings came into
disorder. This is to pronounce one of the deepest and most
important words that can possibly be uttered with regard to
the modern history of mankind. Disorder came into the karma
of present-day humanity. In the following lives on earth
the experiences of men were no longer all of them rightly
co-ordinated with their karma. This is the chaotic element
in the history of recent times. This has brought into the
history of recent times more and more social chaos, chaos
of civilisation; and the disorder that has come into human
karma can find no end. For a split has taken place in the
Hierarchy of Angeloi belonging to Michael.

And now we may
express something that is deeply connected with the karma
of the Anthroposophical Society. It is a thing of immense
significance, and, if I may say so, it is only here that we
come to the right shade of feeling. For with all that we
can describe by choosing comparisons from the
conditions that surround us, we cannot exhaustively
characterise what is taking place behind the scenes in
spiritual worlds. Whatever thoughts we may select from the
earthly conditions that surround us, they are but dim and
feeble. Having made all these preparations, we must have
recourse to the pure description of things spiritual.

Thus we must say:
All that has led the souls together into the
Anthroposophical Society, all that has brought them into
this community through a sincere and inward impulse of
their souls, holds good, needless to say. Yet how does it
come about? How are the forces really there, which lead
these human beings in our time to find their way together
under purely spiritual principles, when in the ordinary
world of today they are complete strangers to one another?
Where do the forces lie, that lead them together? My dear
friends, they lie in this: Through the entry of Michael's
dominion in the Michael age in which we live — with
the penetration of Michael to earthly rulership, replacing
the rulership of Gabriel — Michael himself is
bringing the power which is to bring order again into the
karma of those who have gone with him. Thus we may say:
What is it in the last resort that unites the Members of
the Anthroposophical Society? It is that they are to bring
order again into their karma. This unites them. And if any
one of them notices in the course of his life that he is
entering here or there into relationships that do not
conform to his inmost impulse, — relationships,
perhaps, diverging in one way or another from what we may
call the true harmony in man as between good and evil,
— if he has this on the one hand, while on the other
hand he has constant impulse to press forward in the
Anthroposophical life, — the fact is that such a man
is striving back again to his real karma. He is striving
once more to live and express the real karma. This is the
cosmic ray that pours through the Anthroposophical
Movement, clearly perceptible to him who knows. It is
the restoration of the truth in karma.

In this
connection we can understand very much, both of the destiny
of individuals in the Anthroposophical Society and of the
destiny of the whole Society. For these, of course, merge
into one another.

We must also
realise the following: For the human beings who are
connected with those Beings of the Hierarchy of Angeloi who
remained in the kingdom of Michael, it is difficult to find
the forms of Intelligence adequate to that which they are
now to understand. They are striving to maintain even the
personal Intelligence in keeping with the true reverence
for Michael. These souls, who as I told you partook in
those spiritual preparations in the 15th and 19th
centuries, come down to earth, devoted still, with their
deepest inner striving, to Michael and to his sphere. And
yet, in accordance with the principles of human evolution,
they must receive the personal and individual Intelligence.
The result is a split, a division which must however be
solved by spiritual development. They, in their individual
affinity, must come together with what the spiritual worlds
are bringing down to them in the present age of
Intelligence. Those on the other hand whose Angels fell
away (which is of course connected with their karma, for
the Angel falls if he is connected with a human karma that
is according to this) — they receive their personal
Intelligence as a complete matter of course. This means
that it works in them automatically, through their bodily
nature. It works in such a way that they think, think
cleverly, but are not fully and deeply and humanly
concerned in what they think. This indeed was the great
conflict which lasted so long, between the Dominicans and
the Franciscans. The Dominicans could not evolve the
principle of personal Intelligence otherwise than in the
greatest possible faithfulness to the sphere of Michael.
But the Franciscans, the followers of Duns Scotus (not
Scotus Erigena) became complete Nominalists. They said:
Intelligence in any case is only so many words. All that
happened in these discussions and arguments between men was
in reality an image of mighty conflicts that took place
between the one host of Angeloi and the other.

You see, it is
so, that the Beings of the Hierarchy of Angeloi who have
now united themselves with the earth-principle, have been
living on the earth, in a manner of speaking, since about
the 9th or 10th century. This again is the shattering
tragedy, my dear friends. Here upon earth, materialism is
increasing. The human beings — and above all the most
advanced, the cleverest among them — are of such a
kind as to deny the Spiritual. They begin to laugh in scorn
at the idea that Spiritual Beings should be in their
environment no less than physical human beings. During this
time in which materialism has been expanding on the earth,
more and more Angels are descending and living on the
earth. They themselves join in; for it was they who at
certain times, when a human consciousness became impaired
and dull, incorporated themselves and worked on earth. A
large number of Angeloi-Beings refrain and hold themselves
aloof; but those who by their karma as Angeloi stand
nearest to the Ahrimanic powers, do not hold back; at
certain times they incorporate themselves in men; they dive
down into human beings.

Then there arises
what I described in our last lecture, when I said: Here now
is such a man on earth. He has great human talent, human
Intelligence, which he expresses, maybe, with genius. But
for a certain time when his consciousness is dimmed, an
Ahrimanic Angeloi-Intelligence takes up his abode in him.
At such a time, this may occur: There is the human being;
he seems as though he were an ordinary human being, writing
this or that out of his own humanity. (Now Ahriman can
approach the human being most easily through the very
things which the men of today receive in the forms of
Intelligence. One must assert one's personality fully, if
one is not to be engulfed today in all those things that I
have indicated in the course of the last lectures). Hence
it is that Ahriman can appear as an author. He makes use,
of course, of an Angelos-Being. He can write like an
author. And as we are now united in the sign of our
Christmas Foundation Meeting, we will not be silent on
these things. Therefore I will now add the following.

A very different
attitude was possible to one of the most brilliant authors
of recent times, one of the greatest authors — a very
different attitude was possible before his last works
appeared. When I wrote my book
Nietzsche, a Wrestler with his Time,
all that had come before the public was
Nietzsche the brilliant writer, a man who had carried human
faculties to the highest point of eminence. It was only
afterwards that one became acquainted with what Nietzsche
wrote in the period of his decay. There are above all the
two works Anti-Christ and Ecce Homo. These
two works were written by Ahriman and not by Nietzsche. It
was an Ahrimanic spirit incorporated in Nietzsche. Here it
was, for the first time, that Ahriman appeared as an author
upon earth. He will continue to do so. Nietzsche broke down
over it. He went to pieces. We must understand the true
nature of the impulses we are confronting when we stand
face to face with the ideas that lived in Nietzsche in the
time when he wrote the brilliant but devilish works
Anti-Christ and Ecce Homo, —
intelligent works indeed. I have spoken of the great and
all-embracing Intelligence of Ahriman. For greatness,
majesty and brilliance, we do not decry a work in calling
it Ahrimanic. Only simpletons could think so, who do not
know the greatness there can be in Ahriman. We do not blame
when we speak of Ahriman. Very much on earth depends on
him. I can truly say that in my soul I bled, when for the
first time I read Nietzsche's writing on the ‘Will to
Power,’ which was then published in such a way that
men could gain no right conception of it. But if at the
same time one is able to look into those kingdoms which
since the dominion of Michael, since the eighties of last
century, were severed by the thinnest of thin walls from
the earth-kingdom; if one knows how immediately this
kingdom adjoins the physical, so that we may say: ‘It
is a kingdom similar to that which man passes through after
his death’; if one can gaze into these things and see
how great the strivings are in this direction, then too one
knows with what impulsive power they are coming to
expression in such a thing as the Ecce Homo and the
Anti-Christ. We need only consider how Ahrimanic are
the remarks that occur in the Anti-Christ. I do not
know whether the passage is still in the same form in the
more recent editions. There is a passage where he is
writing on Jesus. (I am not quoting verbatim). He says:
Renan describes Jesus as a genius. Nietzsche does not see
him as a genius, for he goes on to say: Speaking with the
strict accuracy of a psychologist we should use a very
different word. ... In my edition of Nietzsche's works
there are three dots at this point. I do not know whether
it is so in the newer editions too, but in the manuscript
there stands at this point the word ‘idiot,’
written in full. That Jesus is described as an
‘idiot,’ this is the hand of Ahriman. And many
other things of this kind stand written there. We must
remember that at the very time when he was writing these
things, there were tendencies in Nietzsche's soul towards
Catholicism. We must not forget that these things went
parallel with one another. Who, knowing this, could fail to
think that a deep riddle lies hidden there? And what are
the concluding words of the Anti-Christ? They are
somewhat as follows, though again I am not quoting
verbatim: ‘I would like to write it on every wall and
I have the materials to write it in radiant letters shining
far and wide; I would fain write what Christianity is. It
is the greatest curse of mankind.’ — Thus ends
the book. Surely here lies a problem. We must see indeed,
how that kingdom which was separated by a thin wall only
from our own, and where all the spiritual battles took
place towards the end and a little beyond the end of Kali
Yuga — we must see how that kingdom is striving to
penetrate into the physical domain of earth.

To these things
we must look if we would understand what can be the
position of mankind today, towards the things that must
emerge in civilisation through the dawn of the age of
Michael. At the transition of the Kali Yuga — the
transition from the dark to the light age — one did
indeed have to see things clearly, graphically, in the
spiritual and in the physical together, if one would
describe (as I did in the Introduction to my
Mysticism at the Dawn of the Modern Spiritual Life)
the necessary
feeling at that time towards the Spiritual and the
Material. From all directions one would like to gather the
means of expression to describe the mighty transition that
takes place at the dawn of the Michael age. And with all
that the Anthroposophical Movement is, we must feel
ourselves within these things. For all these mighty,
overwhelming facts express themselves to begin with in the
human karma which has now come into disorder. We must think
of the great and universal truth that lies inherent in the
karmic relationships. Yet the world today is such that even
into these general karmic laws and relationships,
exceptions could enter through the course of many
centuries. And now the requirement is to bring these cosmic
exceptions back into their true course. If we think of
these things — for this is the task, the mission of
the Anthroposophical Movement, — we shall feel
something of the great and far-reaching significance of
this Movement.

This, my dear
friends, shall now rest in your souls. You must say to
yourselves: Those who out of these great decisions feel in
themselves the impulse to come to the anthroposophical life
today, will be called again at the end of the 20th century,
when at the culminating point the greatest possible
expansion of the Anthroposophical Movement will be
attained. But it will only happen if these things can
really live in us, — if there can live in us the
perception of what penetrates cosmically, spiritually, into
the earthly physical domain. It will only be so if there
penetrates even into the earthly Intelligence, into the
perceptions of men, the knowledge of the significance of
Michael.

This impulse must
be the very soul of our anthroposophical striving. The soul
itself must have the will to stand fully in the midst of
the Anthroposophical Movement. Thus we shall find it
possible, my dear friends, for a certain time to come, to
carry in our souls thoughts of a great and far-reaching
nature. But we shall not only preserve them, we shall make
them living in our souls. And through these thoughts our
souls will grow and develop anthroposophically, so that the
soul will become what it was intended to become
through its own unconscious impulse to come to
Anthroposophy. I say again: So that the soul may be
taken hold of by the mission of Anthroposophy. I
have spoken these earnest words to you in this last hour,
so that you may let them work in you quietly and in silence
for a time: that the soul shall really be taken hold of by
the mission of Anthroposophy. We shall continue these
lessons when we come together again, — that will be
in the first days of September. For the intervening time I
would like to have laid on all your hearts what I have had
to say this evening in connection with the karma of
individual anthroposophists and of the Anthroposophical
Society.

The twenty-seven lectures given by Dr. Steiner in England
(11th–30th August) were as
follows:

In Torquay:
True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation.
A course of eleven lectures published in
English translation under this title: published in German
under the title, Das Initiaten-Bewusstsein.

Course of seven lectures on Education.

Three lectures to Members of the Anthroposophical Society,
published in English translation, together with those given
in London, in the volume entitle, Cosmic Christianity:
Karma in the life of Individuals, and in the Evolution of
the World.

In London: Three lectures to Members (see above).

Two lectures for doctors and medical students:
The Art of Healing from the standpoint of Spiritual Science.

Public lecture on Education (arranged by the Educational
Union for the Realisation of Spiritual Values).